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GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

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Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#631

Post by kenrikm »

cmiles74 wrote: post #551

I don't understand how censoring something because "it's offensive to someone" came to be acceptable in the first place. Nearly everything is offensive to someone, it's simply too low a bar. I'm certainly not campaigning for more use of the terms "retard" and "retarded". On the other hand, I've experienced first hand the very common, reflexive and thoughtless use of these words. Whenever it's used in my presence I ma…

As someone pointed out in the thread on Github, the term "Git" is also an offensive term. Who's going to start the petition for Github to change its name?

Slippery Slopes Indeed.

From Wikipedia: "Git is a mild[1] pejorative with origins in British English for a silly, incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person.[2] It is usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than wanker, arsehole or twat.[1][3][4]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang)

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#632

Post by PopeOfNope »

Retra wrote: post #282
PopeOfNope wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or someone asking you to take your shoes off in their private home. It's so ridiculous. You should have a right to be rude in people's private spaces. Good job avoiding the argument altogether for this particularly uninteresting non-sequitur. You don't trust your livelihood to being able to take your shoes off at a friend's house.

I don't trust my livelihood to the need to say offensive things, either. Regardless, I'm going to excuse myself from this conversation. What I've done is present an analogy to you (no more of an "uninteresting non-sequitur" than your talk about cucumber eating) and apparently it fell on unwilling ears. And typically, when one's brain stops understanding analogies, that's a pretty good sign it isn't working at all. So…

I don't trust my livelihood to the need to say offensive things, either.

You're trusting your livelihood to the idea that other people won't willfully misinterpret innocent phrasing on your part for their 2 minutes outrage.

And typically, when one's brain stops understanding analogies, that's a pretty good sign it isn't working at all. So get some rest and think about it when you're in better condition.

Aww, your argument is crap therefore there must be something wrong with me. The laziest of intellectual assumptions: he disagrees, therefore he's incapable of understanding. I understand your argument well, you don't understand my argument at all and there's something wrong with me?

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#633

Post by kefka »

kefka wrote: post #610
cmiles74 wrote: post #551

I don't understand how censoring something because "it's offensive to someone" came to be acceptable in the first place. Nearly everything is offensive to someone, it's simply too low a bar. I'm certainly not campaigning for more use of the terms "retard" and "retarded". On the other hand, I've experienced first hand the very common, reflexive and thoughtless use of these words. Whenever it's used in my presence I ma…

What's going on at Github is rather perverse. And it happens to be around the word "Meritocracy". Because of the "feels", the word meritocracy is a 'disempowering word'. It makes people with less skill feel 'less valuable'. So the impetus is to raise your skill? No. It's to devalue others who call you on it, or disregard your uninformed opinion. What this accumulates to is the Github rug in the headquarters. "The Uni…

Source: http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug

Because mobile.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#634

Post by hhandoko »

renata wrote: post #616
hhandoko wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you direct it at a particular person, then your intent is to offend, and by all means it is offensive.

So not at all in the case of this repo?

Merely clarifying parent's post on what is construed as offensive (when it is directed at someone, especially to incite a reaction).

As I've mentioned in my other comments, I get that the author is just having fun... But:

- not everyone will see it that way

- it will reflect poorly on the author and GitHub

So, in short, just be careful of what you put out in public. If we can all agree on a code of conduct (and maintaining civility), then we shouldn't be having this conversation ever again :)

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#635

Post by Kequc »

samch wrote: post #546

There has, for several years, been a campaign[1] promoted by the Special Olympics to end the r-word. I have signed on, and I encourage others to do so as well. I've known a lot of awesome people with intellectual disabilities who have had this label applied to them in the past. It's amazingly hurtful. No matter how you feel about Github's decision, I encourage all of us to consider how the r-word lingers in daily usa…

The word actually means to impede.

So it became common usage as slang against people who were considered dumb, when it started to get callous it was used as slang against the mentally disabled. But it has just about universally not ever meant mentally disabled and I have literally never heard it used for that ever. I've seen it on some memes.

You're advocating for the banishment of a word that doesn't mean what you are advocating banishing it for.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#636

Post by PopeOfNope »

tomjen3 wrote: post #400
PopeOfNope wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst that would happen is what's happening in GamerGate right now: a split along ideological lines. Those who want to judge the merit of a work based on its code and those who want to judge the merit of a work based on the political opinions of the author.

I don't see that split happening right now and I often browse /r/kotakuinaction, which is one of the central gamergater hubs. Also user Snesker, you have been hell-banned.

The fact there are two camps (GG and anti-GG) means there was a split. What's the difference between the two camps? Ideology and nothing else.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#637

Post by PopeOfNope »

foiboitoi wrote: post #434
bduerst wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Slippery slope Github isn't even remotely "blurred" with a government organization. This is some pretty out-there FUD.

Slippery slope doesn't have anything to do with this. My point was that societal standards & expectation shouldn't end with the government. Yes it's not required, but that's irrelevant. People are paying for these corporations through tax breaks, subsidies & other governmental projects (Tesla for example).

I think the fundamental misunderstanding we're having here is that people on the left side of the political spectrum believe the solution to all answers is more government control. The idea that the government isn't the beginning and ending of social control is outside of their realm of understanding.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#638

Post by KirinDave »

paulv wrote: post #257
KirinDave wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because facebook is by design a mechanism of human communication. Github is a mechanism for sharing code. The words used and then rejected were useless, and substituting them did not affect the communication in any meaningful way. Calling vocabulary subs like this "censorship" greatly glorifies the users of said language, as unless they're deliberately trying to be offensive there is always an equally useful…

> Probably because facebook is by design a mechanism of human communication. Github is a mechanism for sharing code. Is code not a mechanism of human communication?

Not at the same level. There are many concepts Facebook is optimized for that code is very poor at expressing. Like fear for one's life at the hands of SWAT teams spuriously called in, for example.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#639

Post by hueving »

glass- wrote: post #431
Mikushi wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it offensive? Yes. Can we stop saying this as a universal truth? You find it offensive. I and millions other people don't. You deal with it.

You don't find it offensive. I and millions of other people do. You deal with it.

Millions of people find all kinds of things offensive. One half of the political spectrum finds the other offensive. That doesn't mean we just ban everything.

Nobody cares that you are offended. Get over it.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#640

Post by PopeOfNope »

konradb wrote: post #626
PopeOfNope wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this entire thread has been a lesson in the pointlessness of pedanticism.

Perhaps 'pedantry' would be more idiomatic? :)

Hah, I see what you did there. ;)
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